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PNS Daily Newscast - February 16, 2018

Florida lawmakers put a concealed weapons bill on hold; also on today's nationwide rundown, concern about Washington State sharing immigrant activist information with ICE agents; and romance scams on the rise.

A team of geographers mapped the patterns of active hate groups in more than 360 counties across the United States in 2014, and found that nationwide, less education, population change, ethnic diversity, poverty and conservative politics correlated with more hate groups.

But Richard Medina, assistant professor in the Department of Geography and the report's senior author, says the ways people hate are based on cultures, histories and other factors specific to different regions.

"If you look at the South, they have different racial issues, and areas along the border of the U.S. may focus on anti-immigrant issues," Medina explains. "So, you can start to see this whole map of hate that is really regionally specific."

Medina and his team focused on organized groups that target entire classes of people based on factors beyond their control - including ethnicity, gender, disability and sexual orientation.

Medina says while many people are facing uncertainty and change, those involved in hate groups believe their actions will help secure the future for the people they see as members of their tribe. He notes that fear can turn to hate – and in the worst case, violence.

"You know, the neo-Nazi, the national anti-immigrant hate, I think in a lot ways boils down to this fear of losing identity from what those people consider to be 'other' people," he observes.

Emily Nicolosi, a doctoral candidate who contributed to the study, says places that have a history of large-scale immigration, such as the East and West coasts, are more accepting of people with different backgrounds.

Nicolosi adds that, even in non-coastal regions, counties that experienced an influx of new people over a five-year period tended to have less hate.

"That goes to show that when people perhaps have a chance to interact with people who are different [from] them, that might contribute to more tolerance," she says.

The study was published in the Annals of the American Association of Geographers.